By Kabs Kanu
Fourah Bay College students union governments used to be very potent, formidable, influential , dominant and effective and they were the vanguard for fighting alongside the media, civil society , the opposition and the people in their struggles against bad governance, corruption, human rights violations and abuse of power . So also was the National Union of Sierra Leone Students ( NUSS ).
We did not only fight for the people of Sierra Leone. We even marched downtown and protested bitterly at the U.S. Embassy, British High Commission, UN and State House when Ghana’s President Kwame Nkrumah died in Conakry. We had an Nkrumahist group , a pro- Patrice Lumumba organization and we protested even against imperialism , neocolonialism and the hardline racist governments in South Africa and the then Rhodesia ( Now Zimbabwe ).
But today, students unionism has become a big joke and a shadow of the radical force students proved to be during the stormy days of the Margais, Siaka Stevens and Maj. Gen. Joseph Momoh. Today, students have joined the ranks of civil society, Watchdog and transparency / integrity organizations as well as professional bodies who have sold their souls and conscience to corrupt politicians and abusive governments for coco ebeh.
During our days at FBC, we had radical, eloquent, patriotic, non- partisan and peppery presidents of the students union like Marcel Thomasi, Hassan Kamara ( Comrade ), Boubaccar Njai- Bah, Mohamed El Tayib Bah, Foday Kallon, Hindolo Sumanguru Trye etc.
The government downtown did not like us because of our militancy ; nor did we like them for their nation- wrecking character . We were always quarreling with them , even when we were not marching down to protest. We wrote them stinging letters threatening to demonstrate whenever the government did anything wrong. They will send ISUs on campus in an abundance of caution, but we did not fear them.
Nor did we have any good relationship with the archaic and moribund college administration. We looked at each other with suspicions and there were always threats that we could storm the administrative building any time to protest. We questioned the exams system where students never saw their exams papers to find out where they went right or wrong. We should have done more, as my mind goes back to the illegal dealings the college was engaged in on many fronts. But at least, we were a great force and the administration feared us. One night in 1971, , we marched on the palatial Kortright residence of the deified Principal, Professor the Rev. Canon Dr. Harry Sawyer in the famous “HARRY MUST GO, OR DECKER ” protests . The principal got wind of our demonstration and fled downtown to hide.
I was one of the leaders of the media of Chuks Press, the student notice board by the dining halls, where we lambasted the government downtown and the college administration every day and night. We had very radical and critical newspapers like the Aureol Times, Spotlight, Awareness magazine and Cocorioko ( my newspaper).
I was also Minister of Propaganda of the revolutionary Njai Bah government that laid the foundation for the 1977 students revolution. I do remember when our new government was introduced to the Principal, Professor the Rev. Canon Dr. Harry Sawyer at his office. It was a turbulent meeting . Njai Bah was lucid and unequivocal. He told the once- reverred professor that our government had come to power to stage a revolution. The furious , concerned legendary academic warned us that whatever revolution we were planning, he hoped we would make it peaceful. Then the student union VP, Saidu Sowa, got up and said : “Help us to make it peaceful “. We ultimately staged the students action at the Mary Kingsley Theatre one night that drove him out of power and ushered in the Professor Eldred Jones era. He had to be escorted out of the hall by Police. We also drove out the catering officer, Mrs. Leigh , which led to the golden era of Mammy Greene, who immensely improved the food quality in the dining halls.
President Siaka Stevens, S.I. Koroma , C.A Camara Taylor and other powerful APC government stalwarts like Akibo Betts and Nancy Steele were afraid of us . Den bin always dey pull hint pan FBC in the media. They used to send our S.U. government threats to send thugs on campus if we did not behave ( A threat they carried out later during the 1977 Revolution ). Njai- Bah, whose government I served, a Gambian, was always threatened with depirtation. Some kind professors like Dr.Akiwande Wyse and Dr. Muctaru Kabbah would call some of us in to warn us to be careful and to concentrate on our studies.
This is just a fraction of the story of students activism during our days . Readers will see the rest in my memoirs about to be completed.
The long and short of it was that our students union governments were caustic , corrosive, biting and took the college administration and APC Government to task whenever they took the wrong step.
We even planned a big demonstration downtown when we learnt through the grapevine that Dr. Mohamed Sorie Forna, Ibrahim Taqi and others, who had been found guilty of Treason, were about to be executed.But the government fooled us that the death sentences would be commuted to prison sentences. The crafty government carried out the executions when the college was on vacation.It knew what would have happened if it had done it when students were on campus.
Today, things have changed. Students unions have become impotent ,powerless, ineffectual, useless , oppirtunists, bootlickers, tribalists etc. More often than not, students union leaders and governments are puppets of the ruling national government .
During our days, it would have been impossible for President Maada Bio and his SLPP to have been committing all these egregious abuses of power, human rights violations, corruption, international scandals and miscues leading to Guinea encroaching on our territory and annexing Yenga, without having confrontations with students up Mount Aureol and downtown . Students would have staged wild demonstrations to protest the SLPP’s highhandedness, overreaction to peaceful protests and the uncompunctious killings of innocent citizens or Bio’s excessive travels or his bold-faced rigging of the 2023 elections .
Today , the Fourah Bay College Students Union and the National Union of Sierra Leone Students ( NUSS ) have gone the way of the Bio- castrated media, civil society, judiciary, professional organizations and the intelligentsia . They are Unfruitful, neutered, impotent, politicized , unpatriotic and unproductive. It is a shame .
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